Publication Order of Shattered Sea Books

Joe Abercrombie is a famous British fantasy writer and a film producer who was born in Lancaster, England. He is well known to have written the First law trilogy and other fantasy related works. He went to Lancaster Royal Grammar School and later joined Manchester University where he studied Psychology. He lives together with his wife and children in the town of Bath, Somerset.

Joe Abercrombie got a job of making tea at the television production company ahead of taking up a career as a freelance film editor. The idea of working as a freelance film editor resulted in him having more free time than before. With this extra time, he decided to reconsider to plot a story he always dreamt of when he was in university, the story which had been scrapped. The idea had actually started six years earlier as a result of Joe Abercrombie’s dream of single handedly redefining the fantasy genre.

In 2002, Joe Abercrombie began writing novels, the first novel being the blade itself. The novel was completed in 2004 and took a year of rejection by the publishing agencies before Gillian Redferan finally accepted to publish the book for a five figure deal in the year 2005. The book was then published in the year 2006 and was followed by other books in the succeeding two year, the two other books were titled as, before they hanged and Last argument of kings respectively.

In the year 2008, he was also among the contributors to the BBC world fantasy series. In 2009, he released a novel titled, best served cold. This novel is basically set in the same world like the First law trilogy although it stands on its own. He followed with another novel, The heroes in 2011 and Red country in 2012.

In the year 2011, he entered into a deal Gollancz for another four books which are generally set in First world. In 2013, HarperCollins made it clear that they had acquired the rights to three books written by Abercrombie, which were intended for the young readers. The three books standalone but are interconnected and formed a standard coming of age tale.

Awards and nominations

In the year 2008, Abercrombie became a winner for the Campbell Award as the best new writer.

In 2014, some Desperado, a short story which was featured in the Dangerous women Anthology was selected for Locus Award. The book was published in December 2013 and featured a shy south which was on the run during the outlaw day before Red country.

The blade itself

This is the first novel written by Abercrombie in the Trilogy of the First law. It was first published in the year 2006 by Gollancz in the United Kingdom, with an American edition which followed from pry books.

In this novel, a character Logen Ninefingers who is a famous barbarian has finally run out luck. He is caught in one feud too many, he is on the edge of becoming a dead barbarian leaving not a thing behind him, only dead friends, bad songs, and a lot of happy enemies. Logen is an expert warrior and a very deadly fighter in the series. He claims to be the best skilled individual with many weapons since as a champion; you will never know when you are called out to fight. Logen has the ability of using both calculated tactics and act instinctively in a fight.

Jezal Dan Luthar (character) is a nobleman, dashing officer, and an ideal of selfishness. He has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. However, bar war is brewing and on the battlefields of frozen North they all fight bloodier rules.

Sand dan Glokta is another character who is an inquisitor. Besides that, Glokta is a cripple and turned torturer who would like to see Jezel come home in a box. He appears to hate everyone; cutting treason out of the union one confession at a time leaves some little room for creating friendship. His recent trail of corpses appears to lead him right to the rotten heart of government if at all he stays alive long enough to follow it.

Bayaz is also another character who is a bald old man with a very terrible temper and a pathetic assistant. He plays a role of making the lives of the other characters like Logen, Glokta, and Jezel to be a lot more difficult. The murderous conspiracies are well conveyed in the novel, they rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line which is between the hero and villain is generally sharp and too good to draw blood.

Before they are Hanged Novel

This is the second novel written by Joe Abercrombie. The novel was published in March 2007 by Gollancz. In this novel, superior Glokta appears to have a problem. He does know how to defend a city which is surrounded by enemies and riddled traitors, when your own allies can by no means be good enough to trusted, and your predecessor vanished even without a trace. This situation appears to be worse to make him want to run away.

The Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are continuously spreading fire and death in every corner of the frozen country. Crown is poised to drive them back and try to win the undying glory. There also appears to be one problem, commanding the worst armed, worst trained, and worst led army in the universe.

Bayaz on the other hand is leading a party of bold adventurers on a dangerous mission through the ruins of the past. The alliance made comprises of the most hated woman in the south, the most feared man who comes from the North and the most selfish boy in the union. The alliance is a strange and a deadly one. The alliance stands a chance of even saving mankind from the Easters if they didn’t hate each other quite so much. However, at the end the ancient secrets is be uncovered, the bloody battles are won and lost, and bitter enemies are forgiven but not until they are eventually hanged.

Rather than announce an upcoming book, we're paying tribute to our most popular author of the year from a survey we did. That author is Louise Penny, who writes the Inspector Gamache books. Trust me when I say this - this is a tremendous serious about a Chief Inspector in Quebec. Buy it for yourself, buy it as a gift - but get the first book in the series, Still Life and see why it's our most popular book series. Read more about it.

Recommendations

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Featured Series

Our character of the month is Inspector Armand Gache. We know people are looking for gifts for others this time of year - so make it easy. Get someone hooked on our most popular series! Seriously I don't mean to beat a dead horse but try this series out!

Featured Author

Our author of the month is the Canadian author Louise Penny We’re paying tribute to Louise this month. Her Gamache series is simply incredible and each book just gets better. If you haven’t read it yet – start now!

Did You Know…

Greg Iles spent several years as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter in the band Frankly Scarlet. He quit the band after he was married and began working on his first novel, Spandau Phoenix, a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess.